Misunderstandings by Zoketsu Norman Fischer

I have been frankly disgusted over the recent stories about Zen teachers’ sexual misconduct (a mild term for the abuse that has been reported) that have appeared in the national press and in the Zen and Buddhist online worlds. Not so much by the conduct itself, though it is certainly disgusting, dismaying, terrible, but by the wearying sense of déjà vu – how often can this happen? How long will it go on? How long can we continue to be this destructively clueless? I have been so disgusted I have more or less been ignoring the stories, not wanting to think or talk or write about them. I’m not proud of myself for this, but, really, I almost can’t take it anymore. It is so repetitive, so tiresome, and one would like to ignore it altogether if it weren’t so terribly wounding to so many. I am thankful to my several Zen colleagues who have been active in writing about and opposing these excesses (and to Sweeping Zen for publishing them); I feel as if they are working on my behalf, and with my support, in speaking out actively as I hope I would be doing if they were not. How can the Genpos, Eidos, and Sasakis of the world do this stuff when they already know that of course they will be outed eventually, and that their guys-just-need-to-have-some-fun spirit is not fun for people on the other end of it. People’s lives are, in too many cases, ruined by what they have done.

How can they do it? In my mind there are only three possibilities: one, no impulse control; like addicts, they literally cannot stop. This is sad and pitiful in the case of most addicts – and would be in theirs as well were it not for the fact that they may claim, and students want to believe, that they are not helpless addicts but spiritual masters. Two, they think they are enlightened and that enlightenment makes them immune from moral constraints; their sexual partners should celebrate the fact that they (the partners) have crawled into bed with a Buddha. Think of the ineffable transmissions! Third, they don’t care that much whether or not they are hurting someone, or maybe they don’t notice or don’t think about it.

No matter which of these three reasons explain it, or maybe all of them do, how can we affirm such actors as Buddhist teachers? Buddhist teachers, it seems, from reading sutras and observation, have some capacity to control their impulses. They are not slaves to their desires, and they do care deeply about the well being of others, and have some capacity to understand what is good or bad for others. As for the enlightened argument, this seems particularly spurious to me. I do not think the word “enlightenment” refers to a permanent state someone possesses somehow as a character trait. The idea of spiritual enlightenment in Buddhism precisely contains the notion that one can’t be or possess anything exclusive of others, so that modesty and radical caring would be its characterological marks. It must be the case that these guys do have great spiritual powers — obviously they do, or they would not have inspired so many for so long. But being a Buddhist teacher seems to me not to be simply a matter of spiritual power per se. Lots of people have enormous charisma, can perform various spiritual feats, but this does not make them spiritual teachers. It may (as many have reported) give them the capacity to inspire others in faith in practice, and that’s positive; and there is no point in condemning those who are grateful to them for that. I am sure the gratitude is heartfelt and I am happy for the offenders if they can have the satisfaction of having done some good, along with the shame I hope they are capable of feeling for the bad they have done. But let’s not be confused by this. Crimes are crimes, and people who commit them are to be condemned. Compassion and genuine gratitude don’t obviate this. They reinforce it. Clarity about right and wrong is a great and compassionate gift we can give to someone who is in need of such a gift.

Okay, there’s that. But, of course, it’s also more complicated. Of course it can’t simply be that there are evil Zen masters who perpetrate crimes all by themselves. Communities must collude, otherwise it would not be possible. And of course sometimes victims are willing, or nearly or partly willing (though this doesn’t absolve the teacher, who must ultimately be the responsible party regardless).

But what troubles me more is that it is even worse than this. To me it seems clear that there must be something wrong with Buddhism (and with religion in general, because sexual abuse is certainly not limited to Buddhists, check your local or international Catholic parish) that its teachings, rituals, customs, understandings seem to give rise to this very special form of human suffering all too regularly. It would be easy if we could just blame the perps, and leave it at that — a few really bad people we can get rid of. Or, blame the communities and the cultures — bad 60’s ideas like gurus and sexual license, we’ll be beyond all that soon.

No, I think it is worse and more subtle that that. We have to ask, what is it about Buddhist teaching, ritual, and practice, with the teacher at its center, that seems to encourage these mistakes? Did we really think that we could simply take on an Asian religion, nurtured in the soils of an alien feudalism, and swallow it whole, without also swallowing a bunch of probably toxic and basic misunderstandings that would require some crucial reformations? We are left with lots of work, lots of discussion, lots of soul-searching ahead of us. This will take time, sensitivity, intelligence, and courage to figure out. But Buddhism (and religion in general) has lots of goodness in it — goodness that we need for troubled times — and it will bear this scrutiny, yielding good results eventually. So, lets all take a deep breath, cease as much as we can from the general confusion that such events foster, do what needs to be done to repair the damage, and get back to work.

About Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Zoketsu Norman Fischer is a poet, priest, and a former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. He is founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation (www.everydayzen.org) dedicated to sharing Zen teaching and practice widely with the world. His latest book is Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls. He has also written Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Growing Up and his latest volume of poetry is I Was Blown Back. Norman's new book, conflict, was published in September 2011 by Chax Press.

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Thank you for this! It’s really good to hear your voice on this difficult issue.
While sexual misconduct seems to have happened far too often among Zen teachers, it seems to be less of a problem among teachers in the Theravadan tradition.

My theory about this is that Zen (unlike the Buddha’s teachings as recorded in the Pali canon) may go too far in the emphasis on cutting through dualistic thinking, such as right and wrong — and Zen also often does not go far enough in stressing the importance of following the precepts.
In contrast to the pain of the Dick Baker era, I cherish the complete lack of ambiguity, the scrupulous integrity, and the wonderful safety I feel in the presence of all the Western Vipassana teachers I’ve known.

Your post would have read better for me if instead of talking about “something wrong with Buddhism,” you had said “something wrong with Zen.”
Blessings to you and yours!

Well said, and well done. It is regrettable and sad to hear, but a good conversation to happen. I agree with Meg, while in Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana we do not ‘see’ or ‘hear’ of such abuses, they happen. But the statement… “Your post would have read better for me if instead of talking about “something wrong with Buddhism,” you had said “something wrong with Zen.” is well appreciated.
It is a good practice to think about.

Of course sexual abuse happens in Therevada too. Most of the reported cases are of Therevada teachers operating and committing their crimes in the west. Back in Asia the crimes go mostly under the radar.

(All those child monks you see in Thailand? How much actual real protection do you think they get from sexual abuse by the monks – many of whom are only there for very short periods).

This is it. These are exactly the two big questions that come from all this. How can this behavior be committed by those who have been “confirmed” as “masters?” . And what is it about Zen that gives rise to this repeated abuse. What does it tell us about Zen here in the West. We need to not only stop the behavior but address the underlying causes. This behavior points to some underlying problem with Zen. I’m not sure what, but clearly something is not right when in pretty much every major Zen lineage in America there have been major transgressions by “teachers” in this area.

Interesting point made about Theravada by Meg. I do think part of the issue in Zen is the romance of enlightenment and the idea of attaining an understanding that is not comprehensible intellectually. We can sail right past morality if we are not extremely careful and get into an “everything is one so right and wrong don’t exist.” But of course morality/right action does exist, even as everything is one, or more accurately morality exists because everything is one.

Anyway enough rambling. These are the two real questions we must deal with. Thank you for stating them so clearly and strongly.

Norman, you touch briefly on this but I’d like to reemphasize the role of collusion between teacher and student.

I take it as given that every teacher will sometimes act from delusion. In those times, the teacher may inflict great harm on those who have offered trust.

However, in the cases of Shimano, Merzel and Sasaki, the delusional behaviors have persisted for decades – and have been public knowledge in the broader Zen community for nearly all that time. I heard about each of these men back in the early 1990s, when I was a newcomer to Zen.

So the Zen community might ask itself: Why have we permitted this behavior to continue?

More specifically, those who chose to train with Shimano, Merzel and Sasaki might ask themselves: What did I want from this man? What price was I willing to pay to obtain it? (I believe that some of Shimano’s dharma heirs have taken these questions quite seriously.)

The organizations that supported these men were governed by boards of directors composed of students, some of whom sought certification from their teacher. These individuals had every incentive to turn a blind eye to predatory behavior — they could not risk their own status and career advancement by challenging the teacher.

(Imagine a symphony board in which the conductor was the chair and the remaining positions were occupied by the orchestra’s musicians. The musicians would have a very difficult time challenging the conductor.)

As long as boards are comprised of students, even senior students, we can expect organizational collusion. There are other governance models, of course. Some organizations seek outside directors with no vested interest (I’m not aware of this in the Zen world, but it’s common in the arts and non-profit worlds.) The Kwan Um School of Zen employs a different model, one in which the board is comprised solely of teachers (those who have already received inka or dharma transmission); these teachers have much less incentive for collusion.

In collusive relationships, both parties have responsibility. In the Zen world, if a student *wants* something from a teacher, or believes that the teacher *has* something that the student doesn’t have, then the student’s delusion can support the teacher’s delusion. And yet, of course, all students begin with this delusion. It’s the teacher’s job to expose these delusions with love and compassion. It’s the students job to let go.

These are very hard things to do, for both teachers and students. No one said Zen was easy.

[By the way, sexual predation exists in all Buddhist traditions (and in every other type of organization). The Tibetan Buddhist community is currently dealing with several abusive teachers, including Sogyal Rinpoche.]

Thank you, Norman, for your generous discussion of this important matter.

I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with Buddhism. Just as I don’t believe there is anything wrong with being a priest, a monk, a teacher. Human beings fail, more often than we would like to admit. We would like to see our practice as pure, maybe arrogantly, assume that the abuses that plague Catholicism or college football or the classroom are rectified through our practice. . I think the biggest challenge that any community faces is not to become inward facing. When any group a church, a sangha, a private school, forgets its purpose is not to carry on as an institution, but rather to serve, then we take huge risks for rewards that are dubious. My heart aches for those who were manipulated and abused by the accused. You are right, it should be our role as members of a sangha to not let our personal desires to avoid shame and embarrassment dissuade us from protecting our communities from unquestioning allegiance to any one person. That insulates the offender, does not protect the victim or serve the world at large. We should question authority always, particularly when we wield it.

Thanks Norman, It’s not like no one has made changes to Zen in response to these kinds of behaviors. Remember Joko Beck ? She parted ways with traditional practice because she saw that there was something imbalanced in the teacher/student, priest/monk, monastic/lay, insider/outsider way of portraying practice. As much as we like robes and bowls and shaved heads and the sound of Japanese being chanted, it seems to some of us in the Ordinary Mind School that an effort to eliminate specialness of any sort at Zen Centers needs to be part of the treatment for this illness.

Joko made some great strides in democratizing Zen in America but she still kept many of the problematic forms, e.g., her Dharma name (while no one else in the community used theirs), transmission (even though she disavowed her own transmission teacher) and daisan (formal face to face teaching where she spent most of her Zen time). She was truly a remarkable teacher but she maintained a guru/master status, a role she claimed to disdain.

Great article and great comments. Joko clearly was moving in the right direction. Toni Packer saw the problems with traditional Zen and renounced her roshi status, transmission and the power differential between student and teacher. The result is what has been called “more Zen than Zen”

What she and others have established at Springwater Center should serve as a model for anyone who wants the essence of Zen without the immense baggage that is weighing it down. Emotions are not shunted aside but allowed to come up as part of the inquiry. Images of what constitutes a “good meditator” are examined. Desire for a better life or realization are examined. The unfolding of right here, right now.

I lived through six years with one so called roshi. It was hard to make sense of the vast contradictions of his behaviors. That’s to Toni and the Springwater retreats it all makes sense and can be let go of.

Carol, Thanks, I think everything you said is true, but alas, we can not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think a lot of the traditional teaching forms are crucial. As to why she kept her Dharma name, I don’t know.

I just posted something similar to the following similar on a friend’s page who had posted your article, but will restate it here. A lot of what you note is the reason why a lot of us now really keep our distance from Buddhist practice centers. Buddhist precepts, the meditation and Sangha aspects can be wonderful, and helped me a lot at a certain point in my life, but The Eastern feudal model transplanted into to the Western ego combined with the lack of societal constraints in the West has been a breeding ground for this kind of behavior, Plus the need of some people to see themselves as enlightened beings (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) and others who seem desperate to be led around by them only contributes to the problem, whether it is sexual or fiscal misconduct. It’s not going to change until teaching roles are demystified and a more transparent, egalitarian structure is in place. I really appreciate that you are speaking out.

I was in a Sangha rocked by a sex scandal in the 1980’s during which the teacher resigned. My next teacher was different, but ultimately (I think) damaging to me and others. If I may be so bold to offer this, after years of reflection I’ve come to believe that one of the fundamental problems in Zen is that being arrogant is somehow seen as a mark of the master. The Zen community seems to think that somehow being arrogant, enigmatic and abrupt means the teacher is “really good”. Obviously, not everyone believes this, and not all teachers teach this way, but you just have to read all the koans and stories about people shouting each other down, and cutting cats in half, and decisively ‘trumping’ each other with their poems (I’m lookin’ at you sixth patriarch) to see that ‘crazy wisdom’ is generally exalted in the tradition.

At my age now, I feel comfortable with my realization, based on my life experience, that fearful people are contracted, controlling and insular and loving people are expansive, playful and engaging. Most of the Zen teachers I’ve met strike me as very fearful people. They are tight and controlling. For years I heard that it was because they were “enlightened” and the concepts we apply to others don’t apply to them. This is something that I’ve heard right from the mouths of teachers. I once spoke with one of my teachers and suggested that before our Sangha members went to work as Chaplains in a prison that maybe they should get some basic training in counselling skills. I got a chilly, dismissive look, and my teacher said something to the effect of “That’s what Zazen is for”. Later, I did a masters in counselling psychology and I learned about boundary protection, power differentials, mandatory reporting, transference, etc., etc. etc. I kept nodding my head and thinking “THIS is what I was talking about!”. Until Zen teachers realize that kensho is one (I would say small) part of being a teacher, and not a license to be arrogant, this is going to continue to happen.

I would also add, sadly, that the abuse will probably continue to happen after that too. Everywhere there is a power differential in relationships we see this come to light (therapists, doctors, teachers, politicians, adults, etc.). Generally it seems, the larger the power differential, the more likely and the more severe the abuse can be. Again, I go back to arrogance. There is a big difference between the teacher – “The Buddha incarnate” – and the lowly student. When everyone (teacher and student) is fooled into believing this, disaster is bound to ensue. How odd it seems that such a severe and radical school of non-duality is so dualistic in it’s understanding of what a teacher is and what a student is.

I have a lot of gratitude for what I learned in Zen, but I can’t look at someone with a black robe with much respect anymore. My experiences are too hurtful and too deep. I was fooled twice, so, shame on me. Best of luck to all of you and the community in general. I hope that western Zen is able to turn this around, but it won’t be in my lifetime. For me, I think the secular buddhists have it closest to core.

I appreciate Norman Fischer speaking out on this issue, and sharing his disgust and frustration. I especially appreciate the recognition that ongoing abuse of students requires collusive community leaders.

On some other levels, this piece illustrates a few of the reasons that such abuses continue.

1. willful ignorance about the causes: About forty years of research and feminist analysis has stated and shown that male sexualized violence, or male dominance with a sexualized face, arises out of patriarchy. Naturally, if women’s humanity is devalued and women’s existence objectified as something for consumption, if conventional masculine qualities are lionized (such as dominance) and there is significant gender power imbalance, then sexualized violence, abuse and domination are the natural result. The factors that contribute to sexualized victimization are known and available for perusal (see for example, the World Health Organization website). In 2013, to omit any mention of gendered power imbalance and global patriarchy, and be pondering whether run-of-the-mill sexual abuse is committed by individual “addicts” is symptomatic of long term failure to treat sexualized violence and abuse as an important problem.

2. Victims being “willing or partially willing” is treated as significant here. Because victim-blaming is very pervasive and harmful, I am dismayed by this comment. What needs to be focused on here is the male behaviours, not whether vulnerable people were resistant. Although the adult status, mental competence and consent of women in (only some) cases involving Sasaki and Eido Roshis, may take particular incidents outside of the criminal realm, the important thing is how their pattern of behaviour of devaluing and diminishing women impacted individuals and the community, and how community collusion further devalued women. From descriptions, some incidents were squarely criminal, but I suggest that it is the overall pattern of devaluation and aggressive sexual dominance over women that is most significant, not the response of particular women. Aggressive, predatory behaviour patterns are harmful to a community, and to the worth and boundaries of women’s lives in that community, regardless of vulnerable people’s way of working with it.

3. The piece has been titled “Misunderstandings.” This is an unfortunate choice as repeat sexual predators often try to obscure responsibility for aggression by claiming “misunderstanding”, and particularly by victim-blaming and asserting that victims were giving “mixed signals” (about wanting to be raped!) via dancing, short skirts, smiling, etc.( fill in the blank with normal behaviour) and using that to escape criminal charges or any responsibility, because as patriarchal communities we are so willing to protect male dominance and devalue women’s experience.

As a lawyer and an expert in women’s access to justice, there are no institutions in this patriarchal world that are free of gender power imbalance, and thus none free of sexual abuse. However, we could be taking clear steps to change that by consciously re-valuing women and our narration of our experience, and by seeing the overall harms done to people and the community by gendered violence and abuse. The causes are not a mystery, and the solutions are not rocket science, but they are a matter of caring and will.

I used to practice in a Tibetan Buddhist school and we studied that there are no victims or perpetrators, but the karma of both people colliding, which makes sense. But in this light I was too troubled by what happened. I was also concerned about the absolute loyalty to your teacher, disregarding any faults you might find in him. So what do you do in these situations? What do you do in other situations, when your teacher criticizes in public the Dalai Lama, and engages in practices that have been forbidden by him? Thanks for adding clarity, as novice students don’t always know what to do in uncomfortable situations -we see things are not as simple as to simply condemn, yet we are deeply troubled about sexual conduct and feel there needs to be more accountability.

Thank you, Norman, for sharing your thoughts. And thanks to others for their comments. It would be so tremendously helpful to me if I could hear how this (decades of sexual abuse) happened from Sasaki himself. And then from the people in his community who were closest to him while it was happening. That way we would have the real story (actual facts to work with instead of speculation. And I don’t mean the specifics of the abuse, I mean what the abuser and his codeps were thinking.

Clearly its not just Zen, as it happens in every type of religion. I speculate that humans simply can’t handle power. The only reason certain powerful people don’t grope women and such is because the media would be all over them and they would lose their power. Before public media, leaders and soldiers abused women all the time, which is why Genghis Khan had hundreds of children. Civilization has slowly brought more accountability in some types of societies. But the seclusion of a zen retreat allows for a lot to happen and not come to be public knowledge. Honestly, many people practiced with Sasaki Roshi and knew nothing about any of this for years. I know that Sasaki wasn’t a terrible person, and that he had awakened qualities. But it that is one thing, and being a Bodhisattva is different because it is a position of complete service to others. It is dangerous and stupid for anyone to be given the kind of reverance, devotion and mental powers over people. He did not ever grant anyone else to be Roshi even though in most organizations, people practicing for 30 or 40 years would become Roshis. That may be because he really wanted to be all powerful. Being in that position obviously benefited his health somehow, becuase he has lived to 105 years old. I imagine that his behavior had to do with the repression he faced early in life when training at a zen monastery in Japan. It must have been a brutal situation where he had no outlet to express sexuality. Then with that kind of training there is a disinhibition, and a stopping of rational thought processes that make judgements about situations.

For him it wasn’t just with women, but he would also drink excessively and even, I think, let people drive him around after they had drank a lot. He encouraged people to eat meat even if it was against their beliefs. He allowed monks to hurt themselves severely and need all kinds of surgeries because of excessive sitting. In zen there is an enabling of dangerous behavior because one is taught to face and overcome all fears. This is valid, but it means that any mistake that a zen master makes is very serious. There is a story of a monk who saw a piece of lettuce floating down the river from the monastery and decided not to practice there because this meant they had been careless. In the west, we tend to idolize people and look or larger than life people. Some people have spiritual powers, like the Roshi. But I think enlightenment shows up more regularly in selfless mothers, school teachers or even janitors. This leads to the question of what can be done.

I believe that the zen master should be given as little power beyond being allowed to conduct Sanzen, as possible. They shouldn’t get to choose their injis, should not control finances, and should not have much money for personal expenses. After all, the Roshi drove a luxury car, had a larger living space than anyone else, better food, and could tell others to do anything he wanted. He also had arule that no one could talk about their Sanzen with anyone else and that no recording devices and no one else could be in the Sanzen room. Imagine how much it would have changed things if someone had snuck in a recording device and shared the offensive interactions with the world. But recording devices were carefully controlled and only the Shika ever used them just to record teisho. I am a bit surprised that still no one tried that or even wrote down a journal of what was said, and what happened on a daily basis. That would have prevented it from continuing.

Going on Zen retreat does sometimes involve a type of brainwashing because you are in silence for so long, and that the small amount of sleep does things to one’s mind. Maybe the teacher would have less power if people were allowed to sleep an hour or two more, or if there were breaks every day when people could discuss things. No one should have that much power over other peoples’ minds. Not everyone would abuse it, I suppose, but Roshi was not worse morally than your average person. I think a huge majority of people would do something pretty bad if given this much power. I think this is the human condition, and therefore the Zen community needs to be much more careful in the future. It’s not that anyone needs to abandon zen practice, or even leave Rinzai-Ji, the organization that Roshi controlled. It’s that people are very flawed and civilization is in a constant process that sometimes includes improvement. Therefore things seem to be getting better, and its best to be as patient as possible with the process and do as much as possible to help things along.

I was thinking along the same lines, especially in spreading out the power in the organization. As far as I can tell, as a relative outsider, the San Francisco Zen Center seems to have learned this from their sex scandal with Richard Baker. The primary teachers there, the abbots, and the Board, are for the most part, separate and have checks and balances on each others’ power.

I’m not sure I agree that most people would abuse the type of power given to Sasaki, but the type of person who would draw that type of power to themselves might be the same type who would abuse it. I know what it’s like to be a horny old goat growing older, and I wouldn’t be above some (harmless) sexual predation — but hurting others and not being sensitive to the effects my actions would have, is another matter entirely.

I have the same reaction that other commentators here have to Norman’s title “Misunderstandings.” In any other group (business, political, medical…) sexual abuse is called sexual abuse. Imagine the field day the press would have if a senator, caught fondling an intern, say, labeled it as a “misunderstanding.”

So long as we persist in thinking of the teacher-student relationship as something special, not subject to the normal laws of commerce and supply-and-demand, the abuses will continue.

A Zen community is a business community where goods and services are traded. Except that we haven’t accepted the same rules of basic decency that the business community accepted a few decades back.

Adult men and women know when they are making sexually aggressive moves. Adult men and women know when they are the targets of such moves. The talk, the physical contact, the patterns of a relationship, we know what’s going on, from both sides. Men and women engage in this behavior because it seems to work for them at the time. We get what we think we need, driven by attachments and aversions, fears and hopes. We want to be special and loved, appreciated. We don’t know how to give without demanding we get back..We are afraid we will be alone and left behind. We dread being nothing special. May we all be free from this suffering.

Well said, Norm.
I especially appreciated the emotional tone of weariness – “Oh no, not another Roshi, not another complicit Board of Directors”. And another point, I was raised in fundamentalist Christianity – most of the abuses there (financial or sexual) happen not in the little churches, but in the big mega-churches. A clear difference in those “ministers” who are in love only with their own power.

Thank you, Norman. With each revelation of misconduct, I begin to feel more and more detached from the ongoing drama of rationalization and story-spin. I appreciate the questions you pose which are important to the development of awareness in every community of the warning signs of abuse. I would also suggest that we know a lot about abuse from a painful history of humanity and there is little reason to re-invent the wheel. Collusion has been a part of many families where father, mother, grandparents, uncles, siblings, cousins, etc. have dropped a veil of silence over the on-going abuse. The Zen master who sexually abuses his students is no different from the father abusing his daughters. Seen in this light, we have available to us many ways of setting up systems that protect the vulnerable (yes, adults are vulnerable too). Education is important and it is more than just knowing that this happens. It is about using the wisdom that has accumulated from different fields of knowing and applying it with compassion.

I do so appreciate this effort of yours to broaden this discussion.
As I read your words, an image formed in mind of the behavior of what I see in a patterning amongst many current Zen teachers, most especially those who most vociferously condemn anything sex-related.

To me, this passage of yours perfectly expresses how I feel about “Zen teachers” who condemn other teachers for sexual errors and transgressions: (Ironic that to me this passage applies as much, or even more so, to such judgmental people as it was intended to apply to the sexual “transgressors”)

“How can they do it? In my mind there are only three possibilities: one, no impulse control; like addicts, they literally cannot stop. This is sad and pitiful in the case of most addicts – and would be in theirs as well were it not for the fact that they may claim, and students want to believe, that they are not helpless addicts but spiritual masters. Two, they think they are enlightened and that enlightenment makes them immune from moral constraints; their sexual partners should celebrate the fact that they (the partners) have crawled into bed with a Buddha. Think of the ineffable transmissions! Third, they don’t care that much whether or not they are hurting someone, or maybe they don’t notice or don’t think about it:”

To me, the puritanical attitude exuding from such teachers is perfectly captured by the above passage, and is just as, if not more so, destructive than many of the sexual interactions they are railing against. They have no self-control, no nuanced understanding, and instead revert to a black-and-white mindset. This is antithetical to Buddhist teaching and practice FAR MORE than some sexual transgression. To me, these teachers are bigots in robes scapegoating others external actions while hiding their own filthy addictions of judgmental mind behind a cloak of externally conforming to social convention. I say, bullshit to that behavior.

The principles underlying all of these sexual “transgressions” is not sex, it is something else – sex is the form it is taking in that moment. The people railing against the sexual “transgressions” are in my mind in many ways just as guilty of this something else, and their behavior is just as destructive, but less visibly so, as the sexual transgressions themselves. However they can hide behind the weight of social opinion, and the entrenched bureaucratic power of the zen “church” and puritanical public opinion.

That doesn’t make them right, and it doesn’t make sexual contact wrong. What makes it right or wrong, actually?

After 30 years of practice, in which I have met several students and teachers in several countries who in the course of their growth and maturing had sex with their teacher/ professor/mentor etc and suffered no harm whatsoever from their experiences, I can easily envision a different world, one in which sexual contact is sanctioned as part of a legitimate teacher-student relationship. There would be many benefits to this, in some sort of alternative society. But such a society does not currently exist.

What is it that makes the difference, between a sexual relationship between teacher and student that is damaging, and one that is not damaging?
That is a discussion I am interested in.

30 years gone to waste…
You are a perfect example of somebody who is a “long time practitioner of Zen” who knows nothing about Buddhism – look a little farther back than the Meiji Restoration. Hell, why don’t you start by reading a book on the precepts.
Didn’t you take vows to uphold those precepts? Or were you just happy you got a shiny new name?

Why don’t you try to understand the importance of that black bib you wear around your neck.

My 10 bucks says that your teacher is one of these teachers Zoketsu Norman Fischer is speaking about.

If you go and live in Asia for a while you will find out a whole lot more about Buddhism than what is in books. Books (especially older books) are usually the products of powerful historical men (and male societies) with political agendas, intended to create manipulative perspectives of something. If you think the essence of embodied precepts of an awakened heart in zen in 2013 is in those books, well, maybe?

I don’t see how asking my question is not upholding the precepts?:

What is it that makes the difference, between a sexual relationship between teacher and student that is damaging, and one that is not damaging?
That is a discussion I am interested in.

“If you go and live in Asia for a while you will find out a whole lot more about Buddhism than what is in books. Books (especially older books) are usually the products of powerful historical men (and male societies) with political agendas, intended to create manipulative perspectives of something. If you think the essence of embodied precepts of an awakened heart in zen in 2013 is in those books, well, maybe?”

So your response is to mistrust all Books on your religion and look where it has gotten you. You were more upset at Zoketsu Norman Fischer for having a “puritanical attitude” about the abuses of Zen Teachers on their female practitioners than the abuse itself!

“What is it that makes the difference, between a sexual relationship between teacher and student that is damaging, and one that is not damaging?
That is a discussion I am interested in.”

Secrecy, the premeditated use of people for one’s own selfish desires, using people as a means to an end, look no further than the black bib you wear around your neck…
You took vows to uphold these precepts, what is YOUR answer to your own question? Why don’t you stop being zenny with your “awakened heart” and just think about it with your brain for 5 minutes.

When we are identified with the sense of me ( our conditioning) we judge people or behaviour to be good or bad. When in essence both are the same. Awareness doesn’t judge and isn’t offended. Oh to be neutral.

Troye said…
“When we are identified with the sense of me ( our conditioning) we judge people or behaviour to be good or bad. When in essence both are the same. Awareness doesn’t judge and isn’t offended. Oh to be neutral.”

Both are the same huh…?
Do you really think there is no difference between giving a rose and slitting a throat?

“Did we really think that we could simply take on an Asian religion, nurtured in the soils of an alien feudalism, and swallow it whole, without also swallowing a bunch of probably toxic and basic misunderstandings that would require some crucial reformations?”

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